On a quest to watch every movie ever made at least once ... 4,500+ so far.

Monday, April 21, 2014

The rapid decline of M. Night Shyamalan

M.
Night Shyamalan made a great movie in 1999 called "The Sixth Sense,"
followed by two good movies "Unbreakable" in 2000 and "Signs" in 2002,
followed by a fair movie, "The Village" in 2004.

Since
then, he has made four of the worst movies of all time: "Lady in the
Water" in 2006, "The Happening" in 2008, "The Last Airbender" in 2010
and "After Earth" in 2013. Not only have the last four movies been
critical failures, but they've also bombed at the box office. The trend
is clear and it's been downhill for the Philadelphia-area director over
past decade.

So why would Philadelphia Magazine put the
director/writer on its most recent cover, which it dubbed the "power
issue" along with several other prominent Philadelphia-area power
brokers? It appears the editors of the magazine are stuck in 1999. If
the guy can't sell tickets to his movies, what makes the editors think
he's going to sell magazines? Not only has Shyamalan's influence
declined rapidly in Hollywood, but another clunker at the box-office and
he might be filming infomercials in the near future.

Ten years ago, M. Night Shyamalan was on top of the world, touted as “the next Spielberg” by Newsweek and fresh off a string of successes including the Oscar-nominated smash The Sixth Sense, the Bruce Willis superhero origin story Unbreakable, and the alien thriller Signs,
which would be Mel Gibson’s last studio hit. But things have changed:
The filmmaker who could once open a movie on his moniker alone has a new
film coming out today, the sci-fi story After Earth, where his
name doesn’t appear in the key marketing materials at all. It’s only the
latest setback for Shyamalan, whose career woes have been compounded by
giddy press reports chronicling his fall from grace, including a
memorable round of media attention in 2010 when audiences supposedly
booed his title card in the trailer for the horror film Devil, which Shyamalan produced. Where did it all go wrong?

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About Me

Tony A. Phyrillas is a leading conservative columnist, commentator and blogger based in Pennsylvania.
A veteran newspaperman with 33 years experience as a reporter, editor, photographer and columnist, Phyrillas received a first place award in 2010 for best column from the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors and a first place award in 2007 for Best Opinion Column from Suburban Newspapers of America. He was recognized for column writing in 2007 by the Society of Professional Journalists, Keystone Chapter and in 2006 by the SPJ Greater Philadelphia Chapter.
Phyrillas is ranked among the most influential political bloggers in Pennsylvania by BlogNetNews.com.
Odyssey: The World of Greece magazine named Phyrillas one of the leading Greek-American bloggers in the world.
A Penn State University graduate, Phyrillas is the editor/content manager of The Mercury, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in Pottstown, Pa.
Phyrillas made frequent appearances on talk radio and as a panelist on the "Journalists Roundtable" program on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.
He co-hosted a weekly radio program on WPAZ 1370 AM for 2 years.